Mike Maltese
I was doing some hunting for something and stumbled across a couple of things about my favourite cartoon writer, Mike Maltese.
I was surprised to find a wire service in 1981 would actually do an obit about him. Here it is:
Roadrunner cartoonist dies at 73
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 23 (AP) — Michael Maltese, who created several cartoon characters and helped create the Roadrunner and the Coyote, has died at age 73 following a six-month bout with cancer.
Maltese, who died yesterday at Good Samaritan Hospital, shared several awards for his writing and animation, including Academy, Emmy and Annie awards.
He was the creator of the French skunk Pepe LaPue and while with Hanna Barbera Productions helped create and write for such cartoons as the Flintstones, Jetsons, Augie Doggie, Quick Draw McGraw and Tom and Jerry.
While with Warner Bros., he worked on Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Yosemite Sam cartoons.
Even better is this syndicated piece that ran in Sunday papers of Jan. 3, 1960:
Crosby's TV and Radio
The Man Behind McGraw
By John Crosby
Mike Maltese is a cartoonist who started in animation in Hollywood about 20 years ago. He’s never heard of Feiffer and probably never heard of Low or Mauldin either. He’s a West Coast boy who can mimic almost any voice he’s ever heard, can actually make a line drawing of himself by sheer will power and native acting talent, and is now a very successful cartoonist for television.
He draws three frames simultaneously for his cartoon strip “Quick Draw McGraw” which my kids rarely miss. This is a kiddie strip but it’s satiric and adult enough to make me laugh. “Quick Draw McGraw” is also fairly significant in that it is typical of cartoons that are drawn entirely for television. Most of the cartoons on television originally (and still) were drawn years and years ago for theatre audiences which, of course, are largely composed of adults.
Where the Money Is
MALTESE explains, “The reason so many cartoonists are now working for television is that that is where the money is from. Movie exhibitors couldn’t afford to pay enough for cartoons because of the double features and all. But working for theatrical cartoons I worked much less. I wrote eight cartoon features a year. Since I’ve been working for television, I’ve done in seven months about eight years worth of stories. This medium eats the stuff up.”
According to Maltese, animated cartoons began orignally as picturized nursery rhymes for the movie houses. When they came on, adults would excuse themselves and go out for a smoke. In order to keep the adults in their seats, the cartoonists started doing their own stories including satire, which would be over the kids’ heads without losing them.
A Long Way
“I’ve been in the cartoon business for 25 years and, I’ve been in every department. Animated cartoons arrived with Walt Disney and they’ve come a long way since that. Until recently the only cartoons on television were old ones done for the movie theatres.
“Hanna and Barbara, the outfit I’m with, were the first to come out with products which have all the crispness and technical finesse you’d find in theatrical cartoons despite the handicap of supplying so much more than theater use.
“In filling the schedule, they were forced to work out a technique of animation that would be faster, actually faster than that used in theatrical cartoons. In TV animation we have to do about 300 feet of animation a week, as opposed to about 25 feet for theatrical cartoons. Some are a little jerky but, on the whole, they’re expert jobs.
Learned from Chaplin
“As a boy I was a great fan of the silent pictures. In 1913 I saw Chaplin and I came alive.” It still shows in his work.
“I went home and I made up as Chaplin. There isn't a film of his I haven’t seen over and over. He showed me how closely humor is to tragedy.
“And the original ‘Mark of Zorro’ with Douglas Fairbanks with its chases and its humor depended very much on the sort of action and pace cartoons use now. I’m going to draw Quick Draw as Zorro one day.”
An Exclusive Club
“In the cartoon business,” says Maltese, “no one can take the credit for the finished product. One hand washes the other. The beautiful part of animated cartoons is that, even though we may all hate each other, everyone is working for the same thing. You can’t tell where one animator leaves off and the other begins.
“No, I don’t mind the anonymity. We animators are a sort of exclusive club and none of us would want to do anything else.”
Then he sighs and adds: “Except—I might have been a comedian in pictures.”
F. Fox
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